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Have you ever thought "You know, man... if you like, went south of Pallet at the beginning of the game, you would TOTALLY be able to go through Kanto backwards"? Yeah, didn't think so. But a while ago, I did, and I decided to make it a reality.

Fire Red: Backwards Edition (also going by the title Der Erif when I try to seem slightly more creative), is a a hack of Fire Red in which the maps and scripts are messed with in a way that makes the player go through the gyms in the following order:

Many Pokemon have been buffed. In particular, plenty of bugs are stronger.

Some gym leader TMs have been changed so you don't get overpowered moves early.

Some typings have been changed. Not many, though.

Surf has been given a lower base power.

Cut has been given a higher base power and made steel type.

Naturally, every trainer has been changed.

Wild Pokemon have beenc changed as well. This hack has nearly every Pokemon between Gens I and III, with the exception of legendaries and a few others.

"Teleport" is now a psychic type explosion.

Pokemon appear in puddles, like Gen V.

There is a postgame, so be sure to make your file saves without savestates.

As the hack has been released on some other forums, I already know a few bugs:

The move "Strength" has broken. It is now 100 pp with no typing. It uses the user's special attack stat.

In Pallet, the rival doesn't grab the Pokemon he ends up using, if you pay enough attention.

The move "Rock Tomb" causes the game to crash. No Pokemon can learn it, but one trainer's Pokemon has metronome and may use it.

The map doesn't correspond to the routes aesthetically. This isn't so much a bug as an "I'll fix it later".

"But Slike!" you say. "Nobody could possiblly be manly enough to go through with this hack! We demand proof!" you say. This is why, in addition to the nice, happy download I have attached to this post, I have a collection of screenshots:

Spoiler:

Right off the bat, you see a path south of Pallet. Of course, you need to get a Pokemon before you can leave.

This is typical.

Not even the Pokedex can stop the overwhelming power of the Old Man.

Regardless, he's not that bad. You just have to walk the entire way around the country, that's all.

Wait... Walk? Slike, you idiot, where are my running shoes?

Now you can RUN around the country. Much better.

Because it's not an island.

The Seafoam Islands aren't Islands, either. Now they're a pair of wells.

But things east of the Seafoam Wells don't look too good. What could possibly be going on here?

Later on in the hack, I decided that many of the areas in Fire Red are painfully boring. Because I was deciding the wild Pokemon for those areas, I had absolutely no inspiration. Then I decided to MAKE some inspiration by fixing those boring routes.

The route connecting Saffron and Lavender has been made into a rain forest. Lots of bugs can be captured here, and trust me, you want them.

Some people call me a sadist, but I like to think I'm making the game more fun.

The route east of Vermilion is also incredibly boring, so I turned it into a swamp. The "Pokemon appear in puddles" mechanic shows up a lot more here.

The route east of Cerulean has been made into a mountain where you can find ice types that weren't available at Seafoam.

The route south of Saffron has been given a more urban appearance.

Contrary to popular belief, you cannot use strength on that truck.

Mt. Moon has always seemed like an awful area to me. I mean, it's more like "Moon Cave". So I decided to make it an actual mountain.

Hopefully this is enough "new area" screenshots to pass the approval process. The point of this hack is the backwards mechanic, rather than any changed maps.

Additionally, I got early scripting help from Liggy, a person I know on another forum.

Edit: Let's add a few new sections here to clear some things up. First, have a "Known bugs" Section.

Spoiler:

Moltres doesn't disappear if you catch it, but it does if you kill it.
Some tiles in Saffron, the swamp, and Diglett's cave are clear when they should not be.
The rival grabs his Pokemon from the wrong spot.

At a certain point in the postgame, you can go to two and three island. I didn't change them, so if you explore, anything could happen. Also, if the PCs stop working, fly to Vermillion and go to three isle port to fix it.[/spoiler]

And since people like to ask me questions, here's a guide to some of the harder things in this hack that seem to keep messing people up:

Spoiler:

In Seafoam, you don't need strength to complete the ice puzzle.
Magby, Elekid, and Smoochum evolve at level 40.
After beating Surge, complete Diglett's Cave and head to Rock Tunnel.
Remember, fly and the bike are required items to finish the game.

This is quite a good idea but i beleive alot more could be done.
If this is complete it seems kinda rushed, i cant really see much difference besides going backwards lol.
And personally id like to see more new features, maybe some new tiles or cool scripts?
Good luck and ill have a play of this in a few days maybe

__________________

Pokémon Ice Version
When the world is in its final moments..
Where will you be?

are there any second and third gen legendaries in this hack? and those maps look *****in awesome by the way. maybe you can map out new areas for those legends and script out side quests. that would perfect this hack.

This looks pretty awesome for such a simple concept. I love what you've done with the routes, especially the swamp and rain forest. I haven't played it yet, but I'm really looking forward to it. Thanks for such a cool take on the concept!

__________________

I'm Epitaph and I plan on releasing the first full-fledged Digimon hack of Pokemon Fire Red. We're getting close to the first release so come check it out in the Progressing hacks, and see how you can help us with the project.

Depending on what you mean by "complete", this may or may not be complete. There IS a definite endgame to this hack (and a postgame), but there are still things I want to do with it. For example, I intend to make new side areas and such, which will probably include gen 2 and 3 legendaries. If you're simply looking to complete the game, you can try it right now.

Also, let me just say this right here: You don't need strength for the ice puzzle in Seafoam. Too many people have just left after seeing a boulder there for me to let it happen .

why not take and use 4,5,6,and 7 island and remap them to suit the legends they hold? like put Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza in four island, and remap the cave and then call that cave of origin, make a Wish cave, Then you could extend the water lybrinth and put southern island there to put latios and latias, you could put the legendary dogs in the caverns, ho-oh, lugia, and deoxys alredy have events so you dont have to use them along with mew, celebi, you could put an extention of bug forest, you could use a island and just put a regi cave there and name it millenia cave, and lastly, you can make a place for me in cerulean cave and have the people fight me for giving me all these wonderful ideas! jk about that part but still, im just trying to help.

Your ideas are appreciated, but that's probably about what I would do in the first place! I tend to recycle areas a lot when I don't use them. Granted, I'll probably just put new areas around the region when I place legendaries everywhere, rather than making a massive hub using the sevii islands. That way, you have to search!

Also, learning how to script isn't that hard. Unless you're completely doing the game (which admittedly is what most people on this forum seem to do), you won't have to make many scripts. I still wouldn't call myself good at scripting, but after whatever my next project is, I'll probably fix that.

Found a glitch
In Saffron when you enter from the right you can walk into the fence
Screenshot:
img405(dot)imageshack(dot)us/img405/6255/frbackwardsglitch.png
I can't post URLs yet so get rid of the brackets and dot --> .

So I've been training my pokemon for a few hours and I just beat Blain. I love the starters because of how different they are. I personally went with Kabuto because he's a favorite of mine. The only errors I noticed were: The kid and biker that are battling in palette town are gone after getting your first pokemon. That means you have no reason to go to Viridian, and some players might not get the pokedex until later in the game. Also there's a movement error in the route below palette town. The little mountain that misty and the kid are on, there are two boulders at the base that you can walk through.

It's a very fun hack and I'm looking forward to getting to the swamp because it looks like the coolest map. If you haven't tried this one out yet you need to because it's very fun.

__________________

I'm Epitaph and I plan on releasing the first full-fledged Digimon hack of Pokemon Fire Red. We're getting close to the first release so come check it out in the Progressing hacks, and see how you can help us with the project.

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